


Before You Knew You'd Know Me

by Pink_Painted_Flowers



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alcohol, Amnesty Spoilers, Angst, Breakup, Canon-Typical Violence, Comfort, Domestic, Drugs, Dumb teenagers being dumb, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Hollis/ Aubrey/ Dani, Hurt, M/M, Multi, Poly Relationships, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory, Post-Amnesty, Pre-Amnesty, There's only character death because...ya know, but that will be later on, relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:35:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22167964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pink_Painted_Flowers/pseuds/Pink_Painted_Flowers
Summary: "When I talk about meeting Aubrey Little for the first-time people expect some kind of romantic, glowing spotlight, and singing angels, they expect to hear about how my heart stopped and suddenly the world just felt . . . right. Well that’s not quite how it went. She almost set me on fire that night."Years before Hollis started the Hornets and helped the Pine Guard defeat monsters from another world, before Aubrey Little knew of her true powers, and fought to keep safe a new family. Before either of them could comprehend the depth of this world and the next, and before they could lose so much, they were just kids who wanted the world. Hollis didn't expect to get stuck on anything when they left Kepler, but Aubrey just kept showing up. And it was hard to say no to girl that just felt. . . so warm.
Relationships: Dani/Aubrey Little, Hollis & Aubrey Little, Hollis & Keith (The Adventure Zone), Hollis/Aubrey Little, Jake Coolice & Keith, Jake Coolice/Keith
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Before You Knew You'd Know Me

**Author's Note:**

> Hello friends!  
> So the basics: Most of this is of course Hollittle, but we love Danbrey in this house so of course they will be here as well. This begins five years before any of the events of Amnesty (just after Aubrey leaves home), and will eventually run through the entirety of Amnesty. (I have tags up for things I have planned, and I will tag specific warnings on things like violence, drugs and alcohol!) Hope you enjoy! Leave all the feedbacks and likes and stuff!

People say that when you meet “the one” you’ll know right away. I was never quite sure what that was supposed to mean, what that was supposed to look like. This also conflicted with the concept of falling in love, because that suggested time, a slow change in perspective, or maybe you just wouldn’t notice until you hit the ground. It was not implied to be instant. Besides, people always said it was weird to say ‘I love you’ on the first date. So, when I talk about meeting Aubrey Little for the first-time people expect some kind of romantic, glowing spotlight, and singing angels, they expect to hear about how my heart stopped and suddenly the world just felt . . . right. Well that’s not quite how it went. She almost set me on fire that night, which is sentimental for her in its own way.

Do you remember being 18? You remember that first taste of real freedom, that made you feel young and stupid and reckless as all hell? That was us back then. In retrospect we never really changed, which proved to be a blessing in disguise when the war came to Kepler. But being young and in love and thinking it’s just you two against the world is not the same as breaking into makeshift government facilities to take down an all powerful being from another planet. . . or maybe the all-powerful being _was_ the planet. I’m still a little fuzzy on the details.

But before all of that. Before I came back home and started the Hornets. Before I knew about Amnesty Lodge and monsters and before I knew about Aubrey’s powers, it was just us. Just us and Dr. Harris Bonkers PHD, an open road ahead of us, and I thought maybe we were driving towards something big, something life changing that only the two of us could do together. The thing that sent everything spiraling though was that we were both running away from things we weren’t ready to admit to yet. And what high school grad isn’t these days?

I hit the road right after graduation. I’d lived in Kepler, West Virginia my entire life, born and raised in the same town as my parents, and their parents, and my friends’ parents. My family history was everyone’s family history, and I was desperate to change that. I wanted to be the one who got out. Kepler was supposed to be a place I mentioned in stories to friends years later. A town they didn’t know the name of but would laugh at with me anyway. When I left, I had no plan. I headed north. My buddy Keith and I had gone to New York the year before and it was the best landmark I knew. I figured I could plan out the rest from there.

It was a little out of the way, but I ended up in a small town along the edge of Lake Erie. This was the best stretch of beach I had been on, which just proved how low the bar was for a landlocked kid. I liked this place. Quiet, a bit cooler than it was West Virginia because of the lake. The town wasn’t much of a tourist spot, meaning just about everything was open. It was in a small hotel near the water that I saw her for the first time, and like I said there were no bright lights, or angels, but I know for a fact, that that was the moment the rest of my life changed. If I had gone down to the diner first instead of coming in to change out of my sand heavy clothes, or if I’d kept my headphones in as I walked through the lobby I wouldn’t have heard the crash from the other end of the room, and who knows where the rest of my life would have lead me to. Fate, destiny, coincidence, whatever we like to call it, is unpredictable in that way though.

There was a handful of guests in the lobby, so I figured I could slip by relatively unnoticed, and without as many odd stares as I had gotten the rest of the day. A tall gangly teenager, in dark clothes, and heavy boots didn’t exactly fit the quiet family atmosphere of the rest of the lakeside storefronts. As I was coming up to the stairway, the stale silence was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass from the other side of the lobby, and few startled screams, and a hurried stream of apologies. A little white rabbit tripped over the tip of my boots and was followed by a flash of dark curls as a girl slid across the floor on her stomach to catch them. Pins scattered across the floor from her denim jacket, which was falling off her shoulder. She attempted to adjust herself as she scooped up the bunny with a few hushed scolding words and struggled to her feet.

Behind her, a woman in a simple but wrinkled suit came up behind her. She had a little enamel pin on her jacket that I couldn’t quite catch, but I took it to me she must have been the manager or another higher up in charge of the building. Her eyes were wide with exasperation, and anger, but to her credit she did her due diligence to keep a professional composure. The girl with the rabbit looked between the manager and I, unsure of who to apologize to first, and I didn’t need one, and it probably wasn’t my place to stand in on whatever conversation was to follow, but there was something about the girl I couldn’t quite place. She looked. . . scared maybe. Miserable for sure, and I couldn’t help feeling just a little bit protective of her.

“I... I’m sorry. He’s usually so well behaved. I don’t. . . he’s never strayed from the routine like that, and I swear that doesn’t happen. We need-“ The woman held up her hand, to stop her ramblings.

“Ms. Little, please just stop. We listened to your pitch as you asked, but we simply don’t have the. . .setting for you here, dear.” The girl deflated at that and pulled the rabbit in closer to her chest. “I understand your situation though and will forgive the minor damages in our lobby here. Have a good evening.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and went to check on the other guests in the lobby and help clean up the lamp that had been knocked over. He kitten heels clicked against the worn hard wood floors as she flit around the room.

A heavy sigh interrupted my questions on the morality and manners of the woman and brought my attention back to the girl in front of me.

“I-I’m so sorry, Dr. Harris Bonkers just. . . got excited and I wasn’t paying enough attention to him so he just- just hopped out the door, and I had to- I-oh. Uhm. Thank you?” She slowed to a stop as I bent down to pick up the pins that were scattered around our feet. I looked up at her and flashed what I hoped was a reassuring grin. I could almost feel her anxiety coming off in real waves.

“Don’t worry about it. It’s your job to protect this little guy, not to herd him.” I stood back up and handed her the pins. She shuffled the rabbit in her arms to accept them, and deposit them back into her pocket.

“Well in public it kind of has to be. Most people don’t exactly like being trampled by a little white rabbit.” She held him at an arm’s length and glared at him. “And I don’t blame them, your nails hurt, bub.” I snorted at how purely adorable that was.

“Can I pet him?” I nodded at the rabbit, and her smile grew a little wider.

“Yeah, of course!” She maneuvered him so that he was more settled in her arms as I ran the back of my hand over his soft back. He squirmed a little at the new touch, but didn’t try to jump again.

“Well hello there. Dr. Harris Bonkers was it? It’s nice to meet you. It’s a shame I don’t know your owner’s name though. Guess just you and I will become friends today then.” The girl’s eyes went wide and she rewrapped her arms around the bunny as her name stumbled out of her mouth.

“Aubrey, sorry. I. . . it’s Aubrey. There was. . . a lot of things happening, I just forgot to tell you.”

“No, no, no. It’s fine, I’m just teasing you. . . Aubrey. I’m Hollis.” She gave a wave and a small hello. “Listen, I was about to go get something to eat, and you look like you could use a pick me up. Let me get you both something to eat, yeah?” Aubrey shifted her weight between her feet, and sucked her lower lip in between her teeth.

“I don’t know. You really don’t have to, and we don’t want to impose. We probably should be getting back on the road soon anyway.” I shook my head.

“No, please, I w _ant_ to. That woman was kind of a bitch to you so you deserve something good to happen. Besides, Aubrey, if there’s anything I’ve learned about life up ‘til this point, it’s that if they aren’t hiding a weapon, then you can and should take offers for free food and shelter from people.” I pulled both hands out of my pockets to show that all I had on me was my phone and some jacked up ear buds. Aubrey just raised and eyebrow at me in suspicion.

“That. . . doesn’t sound like an entirely trustworthy rule of thumb.”

“It’s not. But I’m still here aren’t I?”

For as much as Aubrey liked to talk, and for all the things we discussed on our way down the street from the hotel, she said very little about how she wound up in this little town. The sun slowly set over the horizon, bells on the doors on the souvenir shops and candy stores tinkled as families of tourists made their way out for the night. Aubrey talked about how many times Dr. Harris Bonkers had wandered off on his own and ended up the center of attention in groups of a few curious little kids (though never in the middle of an act, she reassured me, though I didn’t quite catch what their act was exactly). She talked about all of the different pins on her jacket, and what cities they all came from, she even listed off the flavors of milkshakes that made her sick (mint, strawberry, and peanut butter) as we stepped into the near empty little nostalgia diner near the visitors center for the lake. I let her talk, trying to keep up with where her stories were going next, but always surprised as to where she landed with them.

I tried to make mental notes of all of the little things I was learning about her as we sat on opposite ends of a rickety booth with the stuffing bursting through the plastic seams here and there. She had turned 18 about a month ago, she was deeply protective of Dr. Harris Bonkers (this much had been obvious from the first moment I met her), she made a few vague mentions of a home somewhere in the Midwest. Despite the chocolate milkshake she sipped at between stories she was probably lactose intolerant and loved her grandmother’s brownie milkshakes to pay too much mind to this fact anyway. She also got sick when she ate guacamole, but not California rolls for some reason.

Aubrey had left Dr. Harris Bonkers in his cage in the back of her van with a fresh bowl of food, and a blanket with the widows cracked. Without the squirmy bunny in her arms she seemed unsure of what to do with her hands as she spoke. She fiddled with her leather gloves and tapped her fingertips together if she wasn’t holding food or tearing open a ketchup packet.

And it was when she went to start in on her fries that I watched the atrocity of her eating habits.

“I’m sorry,” I choked on my own fries. “ _What_ are you doing exactly?”

She peeked up at me through a few stray curls, confusion narrowing her hazel eyes. She followed my gaze of horror to her plate of fries, which were dumped into a piled and then drowned in ketchup as if it were a plate of sinful tomato nachos which she was picking at and covering her fingers in ketchup.

“I’m. . . eating my fries?”

“Yeah like a heathen!” Unlike me, Aubrey had some manners, and covered her mouth when she coughed on her food.

“A heathen? What are you talking about? This is the correct way to eat fries. That way you get an even distribution of ketchup over all of your fries.”

“You know where else you get an even distribution of ketchup? _On your fingers._ ” I pointing to her hands. She looked up at me, and grinned, and before I could even register that she had moved she had wrapped her fingers around my wrist, and began rubbing ketchup into my palm.

“Oh you should really try it though, Hollis! It’s a _wonderful_ moisturizer.” I gaped at her, my brain entirely unwilling to process any part of what had just happened. Her hands stilled over my own, and she laughed nervously when I didn’t reply. She pulled her hands away, and fumbled for a few napkins to wipe off my hands. Her cheeks flushed red as she mumbled an apology.

“Did. . . did you just make a ‘ _Hannah Montana’_ reference?” Aubrey paused, and smiled at me again.

“Of course I did. I’m impressed that you noticed, sometimes I feel like I was the only one who remembers that part with-“

“Corbin Bleu? Are you kidding me, I was practically in love with him as a kid. I could never forget that scene.” Her expression wobbled as she took in a sharp breath, but it quickly broke into a more joyful smile.

“I. . . well I was in love with Miley Cyrus for a long time too.” Her voice was softer than it had been al night, as if she was afraid of anyone overhearing our conversation even though the only other family there was getting up to leave anyway. I tried to give her a comforting smile because ‘ _hey I notice you seem to like girls, but how comfortable are you with your sexuality are you?’_ was maybe not the best next question. I had just met her, but I still wanted her to know this was a safe conversation between us.

The both of us were quiet as we cleaned ourselves off the remaining ketchup. Admittedly I was getting a little too detailed for so little of a mess, but Neither of us were quite sure where we wanted the conversation to go from here. Maybe if I could get her talking again, she would ease back into the happy rambling that had filled the rest of our evening.

“Aubrey, can I ask you a question?”

“Can I ask _you_ a question?” I huffed, a little caught off guard by the retaliation. She didn’t move, just kept staring at me, waiting for an answer.

“Well… I mean yeah, that seems fair. You wanna go first then?” She nodded, and leaned herself on her elbows to get in a little closer. Aubrey took a deep breath, squeezed one eye closed, then the other. Bit her lip, tapped her middle finger against the table. I laughed a little.

“Uh… did you have a question in mind, Aubrey?”

“No, I do, I’m just trying to figure out how I want to ask this,” her eyes followed a line in the ceiling as she spoke, before she looked back at me. “Well I’ve never been good at being subtle, so just… Hollis, what pronouns do you use?” And I laughed at that. Actually laughed, because I could feel the weight in my stomach unclench a bit.

“ _That’s_ what you were struggling to ask?” Aubrey’s cheeks went red as she stumbled over her next words.

“Well I-I don’t know! It’s not something I’ve ever asked before! And I mean sure I know maybe I should, just the hard wired social norms we’ve grown up with I just… was worried there was a better way to ask and that I was gonna look like a total dick.” She tucked her arms back around her waist and pulled away from the table a bit. I reached to touch her arm.

“Hey. Aubrey, no it’s fine. I was just worried it was going to be much more complicated than that. I use they and them. And… thank you for asking.” The corner of her mouth lifted a bit and she nodded at his jacket.

“Of course, I just… I saw your pin, so I figured I should just… confirm I guess.” I looked down to the pins above the buttons on my jacket to see sure enough I had a small Nonbinary flag on my chest. She picked up another fry without another word. And it was. . . refreshing really. Just a simple matter of fact question, not need for continuing, exhausting questions after the fact as well.

She nodded as she finished off another fry, and mumbled through a mouthful of food, “Did you have a question for me then?”

“Oh. . . yeah, yeah I did. What is this tour you’re on? What is it that you and Dr. Harris Bonkers do exactly?” And Aubrey’s eyes lit up. She was probably waiting all night for me to ask this exact question. I swear she started to vibrate.

She leaned in toward me, fingers spread wide on the table between us, shoulders set, and the most childish look on her face, and I could feel the energy of her excitement hitting me in the chest like a heat wave. Unconsciously, I leaned in closer as well, my knee bouncing under the table as I waited for her to answer.

“Hollis, let me ask you something.”

“You did just ask me something.” This caught her off guard. She furrowed her brow and glared at me, annoyed at the technicality.

“Can I ask you _another_ question then?”

“Are you going to answer my question if I say yes? _Ow-_ “ I yanked away the hand she swatted.

“Yes. Are you going to let me continue?” I stuck my tongue out at her but nodded. She tilted her head in a little more, as if she were telling a secret meant only for the two of us.

“Do you believe in magic?”

“Magic?”

“ _Magic._ ”

“Like. . . magic magic?”

“Like fire magic,” she responded with a wave of her fingers. I paused. Did I believe in magic? Did _she_? I hadn’t been asked this question since I was seven years old running through Disneyland in my Peter Pan pajamas. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, I could play the game though.

“I think I could be persuaded into believing.” Aubrey stood up from the table, still grinning, and I did the same, trying to keep up with the way her train of thought jumped around.

“Follow me. I want to show you something.” She turned toward the door before I could respond, leaving me with no choice but to follow. I threw a tip down on the table and ran after her as she flung open the front doors. She lead me across the street toward the lake, her steps quicker than earlier. It was fully dark outside now, and he temperature had dropped significantly. The only light came from the street lamps, and a few stores just now closing up shop. The water in front of us was pitch black. No lights of boats out in the distance, just a long stretch of nothingness.

Aubrey hopped the chain link fence surrounding the parking lot to reach the shore. We both struggled a bit in the sand with our boots, it didn’t help Aubrey that she was also distracted trying to wiggle her fingers back into her leather gloves. We were still a good ten feet away from the water’s edge when she stopped and turned to face me again.

“Alright this is good,” she said, and then plopped herself down on the sand. She looked up at me and waved her hand in my direction. “Go on, come on, sit down I gotta show you something.” I lowered myself to the sand, far slower than she had, and sat cross legged in front of her. She dipped her hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. Before I could make some sarcastic comment, she began her show.

“Thousands of years ago, on the banks of the Nile, the Egyptians believed that if a person’s will was strong enough, and if they believed hard enough, that they could conjure from nothing, flame itself. I am that person.” She made sure to accentuate every word of her final sentence, and I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at her rehearsed speech. “If you do not believe me, I will prove it for you here, tonight. Shuffle this deck for me.” She thrust the deck in my direction, and nodded, encouraging me to take it.

“O. . .kay, Aubrey.” I was going to indulge her little act here, see where it would go. So I took the deck of cards, and attempted to messily shuffle them on my knee until I felt satisfied with it. When I tried to offer her the deck back, she simply shook her head.

“No. Pick a card. Memorize it, then put it back into the deck, and shuffle again.” I whistled low and nodded. I worried for a minute that I was being a little rude to her enjoying a simple card trick, but either I was coming off better than I thought, or she was just unphased by it, because her expression never changed. I pulled the card off the top, the two of hearts, then shoved it back into the middle of the deck and shuffled them all again. This time she graciously accepted them back and began fiddling with the edges of the deck.

“Alright, now I am going to cut the deck into three, restack them, and the card on top will be the one you pulled. You ready?” I nodded. Aubrey proceeded to divide the deck of cards into three new piles, and then took a moment in selecting the order in which they should be replaced. With a dramatic flair, and without looking at the card she was showing me she handed me. . . the Queen of clubs, and asked, “Is _this_ your card Hollis?”

I nearly panicked. Because oh god that was embarrassing. She was so sure of herself in that moment that she had pulled the correct card, had been so excited to show me this trick. Hell, she was telling me that she did this kind of stuff for a living, and here I was in the horrible decision to turn this moment very awkward, and probably crush her dreams.

She noticed the way my face changed, and dropped the smile, as she looked at the card.

“This. . . wasn’t you card was it?” I sighed.

“Uhm. . . no it wasn’t. It was actually-“

“Oh, what did I forget to do? What did I forget to do?” she asked herself, as she flicked the card. I opened my mouth but didn’t get to say a word before she turned back to me, flicking the card one last time.

“Oh!” And the card burst into flames between her fingers.

“Holy shit!” I scrambled back, as the card went up in smoke, but. . . it didn’t disappear. No, it was as if it was just burning away an outer shell, and underneath was another card.

“Was your card the two of hearts then?” Aubrey asked, now wearing a shit eating grin. My jaw dropped, and I could do nothing but stare at her, still in shock from the sudden heat from the tiny flame she had managed to produce out of nowhere. She laughed.

“I take it from your reaction that it was.”

“You. . . how did you do that, Aubrey? Oh god no, you’re not gonna tell me are you?”

“Nope. A magician never tells her secrets.” It was my turn to laugh now, falling into the drama of her little act.

“So. . . so you’re a magician. You’re touring the country with a magic show.” Aubrey tucked her legs up against her chest, tapping the deck of cards against her shins.

“Well, trying to anyway. I was trying to pitch our show to the manager of that motel. Just. . . to run it for a week maybe. I don’t have much of a reputation, so it’s hard to get any bookings.” I leaned back on my hands as she spoke. I couldn’t quite tell if she was upset, or angry, or maybe just dismissive of the whole thing.

“What’s Dr. Harris Bonkers’ role in all of this?”

“My assistant of course. You always need a trustworthy assistant, and Dr. Harris Bonkers and I have a special bond.” Well that wasn’t exactly a conversation I was prepared to dive into anytime soon. I veered the conversation elsewhere instead.

“For my own peace of mind, please let me in on just one secret. How do you control the fire?” I asked, nodding at her hand. She laughed a little, and tucked one leg back under herself, reaching out one hand toward me.

“The glove is basically a matchbox. I snap, and strike it in just the right way, and it lights up. But it’s a small flame if there’s nothing there to ignite, so I just kinda wiggle my fingers, and the flame goes out, watch.” She snapped, and a flame spouted in the palm of her hand more suddenly than I was prepared for. I kicked my leg out in shock, as if I was preparing to get away, but instead I knocked over the girl with a literal flame in her hand, and she fell right into me, catching the edge of my jeans which lit on fire.

The world seemed to slow down for just a moment, and it was because of her, but not in the way kids in YA romance novels talk about it. No, I was terrified. My jeans were about to light on fire, and I could feel the heat through my shirt, and I was a couple hundred miles away from home and this was not the way I wanted to go out. But faster than I ever could have reacted to it, Aubrey smacked a handful of sand onto my thigh, and it was gone. It didn’t stop my heart from racing though. Aubrey scrambled back up.

“Oh god, oh god, I am so so sorry. I didn’t mean to get you, are you okay?”

“H-hey, Aubrey calm down. I’m fine I swear. Just a little shocked, but you got it out so quickly so. . . no-no harm done.” She pushed her fingers through her hair and held on for a moment while she breathed. For a moment it looked like she forgot I was even there.

That had been enough excitement for one night, so I didn’t push her to tell me what was so wrong. Instead I offered to walk her back to her car parked outside of the motel. She was quiet on the way back, kept her hands stuffed in her jacket pockets, and it seemed like maybe she needed some space, so I tried to keep that distance between us for now.

We exchanged goodbyes as she checked on Dr. Harris Bonkers, who was nibbling on his food. I waved as I walked back inside with a hurried promise that I would see her later. She nodded to me in return before I turned back into the door.

Her car was gone the next morning, and there were no signs of a dark-haired girl with a white bunny, and red boots anywhere in the town. She had vanished overnight

I didn’t see Aubrey Little again for almost three weeks.

**Author's Note:**

> So you made it to the end, yay I'm so glad! If you happen to know me from other fics and thus know my track record on uhm... actually writing well 1. I am so sorry, but 2. I won't promise perfect consistency, but I'm actively working on a good writing schedule. Currently I am thinking the chapter from now on will be pretty expansive and thus decently long so I'll only have a handful of them. I'm also tag teaming writing this with a few other projects. I will let you know if and when I have a definitive posting schedule though. Thanks for reading!


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